When school lets out

IT MAKES LITTLE sense to focus on what kids learn during school without paying an equal amount of attention to what happens to them after school.

Yet as many as 1 in 5 California schoolchildren -- and some 14 million children nationally -- have no one to take care of them when they leave the school grounds.

Two years ago, voters approved an initiative sponsored by Arnold Schwarzenegger to finance more after-school programs. But its implementation has been indefinitely postponed until the state's economy improves.

Today a national campaign focusing on the crisis -- called Lights on Afterschool! -- reaches its apex as after-school programs around the nation host events, rallies, open houses and student performances. (For more information, see www.afterschoolalliance.org).

The Beacon Center in San Francisco's Sunset District, for example, is hosting a tour of its after-school "clubs" with themes like movie-making and hip-hop dance. The Beacon Center provides after-school care at four public schools. It's not unusual for each program to have a hundred or more students on its waiting list.

No child should be shut out from after school care. We must ensure that what happens after school doesn't undo the gains made during the school day.